


Through the Valley

by Silverwings87



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: F/F, Fix-It, Post-Canon, Spoilers, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24858196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverwings87/pseuds/Silverwings87
Summary: When you're lost in the darkness, look for the light. Ellie's not so sure that she'll ever see the light again.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 303





	Through the Valley

**Author's Note:**

> This is my reaction to The Last of Us: Part 2 ending, which made me very, very sad. Naturally, the only appropriate thing to do is write fix-it fics at three in the morning. MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE LAST OF US: PART 2!

**Part 1- Pain**

  
The house sighs with the wind. In the sill, curtains flutter like ghosts, catching the breeze and billowing out into spectres. Somewhere, a door mouse chews through the aged drywall and skitters across the empty floors. It’s peaceful here, the house seems to say. And the wind breathes its agreement. Not far away, a lone clicker hears the rustle of grass and runs toward the disturbance, screaming its pain to the empty field. Like the house, they used to be someone. In another life, their family would pull their four-by-four to a stop and spread a picnic blanket out. The husband would hold their daughter in his lap while the wife inks their likenesses onto a piece of parchment paper. There they would sit and watch the sun sink behind the Wyoming hills. The clicker claws at its face. The carapace of fungus snaps fragile fingernails, and the monster shambles on.

* * *

In a bar in the town, a man hunches over his third glass of bourbon. The bartender looks at him with pitying eyes- he knows why the man is here. The brown-haired fellow is a regular. Folks sometimes pay for his drinks when he runs out of things to trade. Last night, he handed the bartender his flannel overshirt in exchange for a whiskey. The bartender stopped taking his trades then. Finishing his Liquid Courage, the man stands and limps toward the door. He only makes it two steps before falling to the floor.

* * *

She’s curled up under an old pine tree. A fire smolders at her feet and her eyes are closed. She’s long past caring about the infected. So what if they bite her? She wishes the infection would take her. Maybe she’d become one of those things and forget everything. _Let’s be poetic and lose our minds together._ If only. Maybe things would have been better that way. Maybe Dina and Jesse would be living on the farm, raising their child and dancing to decades-old music in the kitchen. Maybe Tommy and Maria would be together in Jackson, keeping the town running and having movie night with the kids. Maybe Joel and Tess would have kept up their smuggling ring and provided the Boston QZ with food and medicine until the infected or the army came for them. Maybe Abby and her father would be saving the world at that hospital in Utah. Her mutilated hand goes for her switchblade. _Nothing in her pocket._ Her mother’s knife was at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of California. She curls further into herself, and sobs until her throat aches.

* * *

The baby’s crying again. The mother wipes the sleep from her eyes and crawls out of bed. The small house presses in on her. She never liked the confines of the town, but anything is better than what she left behind. Cradling her son’s head, she props him up on her shoulder and paces in circles, making small shushing noises as she goes. Eventually his cries lull into the sweet rhythm of sleep. She keeps walking and walking. Round and round in circles, wearing a pattern onto the faded carpet. She thinks of the day she came back here after so long away, how the pity turned to rumors and was forgotten within the week. _Always knew that redhead was bad news,_ and, _She has to raise that kid alone, poor thing._ Sometimes Maria checks in on her. She enjoys the company.

* * *

The Wolf runs a hand through her choppy hair. It’s growing back by the day. Soon she’ll be able to braid it again. Lev has always been fascinated with her hair. Maybe she’d teach him how to pull it back for her. A yip from the doorway catches her attention and a small bundle of fur pounces on her leg, tugging at her jeans playfully. She scratches the dog’s head. _Fetch, gir!_ A chewed-up baseball lays discarded on the floor. Picking it up, she bounces it in her hand once, twice, then tosses it out the door, much to the furball’s delight. Maybe she hears some glass break somewhere. _Looks like I’ve still got my throwing arm._ She smiles. The Catalina sun is bright and hot, and the Wolf is content.

**Part 2- Healing**

  
When she arrives at the gates of Jackson covered in bites, she’s begging for a swift death. The girl knows this. There’s one on her leg, one on her shoulder, one on her hand, and an ancient one hidden underneath a chemical burn, hidden underneath a tattoo. She falls to the ground and waits for the tear of bullets and the crack of rifles. They never come. When she looks up from where she lies, she curses so loudly that she scares some birds nested in a nearby tree. Tommy and Dina stare down at her prone form from atop the gate. Their surprise equals her devastation.

Her escort has to keep at least five different people from putting a bullet through her brain as they walk down the main street. People stare from their porches like they’re seeing a ghost, and she supposes they’re not wrong. Former friends and acquaintances watch the grim procession, none daring to step in the way of a ghost, the town drunk, and Dina. They continue this way till they reach the infirmary. Tommy dumps her unceremoniously on a cot. Dina doesn’t meet her eyes as she leaves. She shuts the door with a quiet click. Ellie would have preferred a slam.

After much debate, a medic agrees to sew up Ellie’s wounds instead of shooting her on the spot. He doesn’t see fit to spare any precious painkillers, and the needle lances through her skin. But she’s had worse. When he’s finished, Ellie stares out the window and plays with the stumps of her fingers. Storm clouds gather on the horizon.

* * *

Everyone in Jackson knows now. _She’s the immune girl. She’s the girl that came back from the dead. She’s the girl that damned us all._ Ellie keeps quiet and brushes the horses. The horses don’t look at her and see an Infected. They don’t see the shell of a human that somehow managed to walk and keep walking long after death. They don’t see the girl who stabbed a pregnant woman in cold blood, who shoved a knife through that other Wolf’s throat. They don’t see how her hands shake when she’s alone. And for that small mercy, Ellie is grateful.

* * *

It’s snowing now. Winter. She left one of her windows open the night before, and now there’s a pile of snow in her house. Part of her wants to let it melt there, but a bigger part forces her to grab a shovel and put it back where it belongs. Some kids scamper by, throwing snowballs, and she’s reminded of another snowball fight, so long ago. She had been young then. Young and stupid. Still, she picks up a clump of white powder and forms it into a ball. It’s awkwardly lumpy where her lost fingers would have been, but it serves its purpose. She tosses it in her hand once, twice, and chucks it at the tallest kid. They look at her with wide-eyed fear for a long moment, but then one of the younger ones throws a snowball back at her, and in a few moments there’s a pile of kids on top of her, laughing and shrieking and covering her in powdery snow.

* * *

One night, Tommy staggers over to Ellie’s porch, drunk beyond belief and leaning heavily on his good leg. Ellie has no choice but to let him in. He collapses onto her futon and waves his hands crazily, telling some story to thin air. From the way he’s making shooting motions, and weeping, and crying Sarah’s name, Ellie gathers that it’s the story of Outbreak Day. She’s never heard the details- all she knows is that only two for three of Joel’s family made it out alive. She props him up with some folded up jackets and listens to his rambling. In the morning, she scrounges up some coffee beans for his hangover, and they eat a silent breakfast. They never speak of that day again, but from the way he silently nods at her as they pass on the street, she knows that he remembers.

* * *

Since Jackson’s discovery of Ellie’s immunity, she’s become the de facto supply runner. It makes sense- why send people who could be infected when you have an immune (and highly skilled) scavenger right there? Dina pretends not to be worried every time Ellie leaves to gather supplies. She’s not her problem anymore. Ellie made her choice. JJ needs something. Electronics need to be tinkered with. Someone needs to be stitched up. The only issue is that all too often, the person in need of stitches is none other than Ellie, and they sit silently in the infirmary until all of her wounds have been stitched, wrapped, and disinfected. Then they go their separate ways until the next injury.  
This go-round, the injury is an ugly gash across her face. Luckily, the sharper bits of the Hunter’s machete missed her eyes, but the long wound will heal badly and leave another scar. Ellie doesn’t know why DIna keeps getting assigned to clean up her wounds. She suspects that it’s Maria’s doing, but she doesn’t say anything. While her former best friend and love pours a twenty-year old bottle of rubbing alcohol across her face, Ellie does inventory in her head- twelve bottles of Tylenol. Two bundles of rags. Three bottles of probably-expired penicillin. Some spare gun parts. Five bottles of gun oil. A pack of guitar strings. The last item sits in her pocket, untouched since she first picked it up on a whim. The shell of one of Joel’s half-finished guitars sits in the corner of her room back at home. It’s built for a lefty. She hasn’t had the heart to stain it or string it. Yet. Maybe. Someday. Dina presses a rag into Ellie’s hand, then presses it to her face. Long after Dina leaves, Ellie sits on the cot, staring after her.

* * *

It’s been six months since she came back to Jackson. Ellie is sitting on Joel’s gravestone, un-stained guitar leaning next to her. It has strings, at least. Learning to play lefty has been a process- would have been a process, if Ellie had actually tried to play anything other than a few discordant strums. Between her endless patrol duties and avoiding the community of Jackson at large, she hasn’t had time to pay her respects, a mistake which she is now rectifying. She’s lost track of how long she’s sat there, when a little boy with a head of dark, messy hair toddles up to her. He tugs on her pant leg and babbles something incoherent. Ellie doesn’t want to look at him and be reminded of how she failed him and his mother, so she looks at a nearby tree instead. She doesn’t have to avoid his gaze for long- Dina arrives mere minutes later and lightly chastises him for running off. The two girls share an awkward moment of silence, before Dina thanks Ellie for watching her errant son. Ellie nods and looks back at the nearby tree.

* * *

In Ellie’s humble opinion, Jackson holds too many dances. She could be back at home, rereading her old Savage Starlight comics for the hundredth time, but instead she’s leaning against a wall at the seasonal barn dance, which she had only attended because Maria quite literally twisted her arm. She’s reminded of another dance, not so long ago. On the bright side, old Seth kicked the bucket on patrol three weeks ago, so Ellie didn’t have to accept anymore bigot sandwiches. On the not-so-bright side, everyone who had attended the last dance with her was dead, drunk, or hated her guts. Needless to say, this was a downgrade. Slowly, the night dissolves into a haze of liquor and music. Ellie downs her fourth (or sixth? It’s hard to tell) shot of Liquid Courage- the brand name _almost_ made her chuckle- and sways toward the exit. Her hand is on the door handle when she hears it. That fucking song. Where Jackson got another copy of that song, she doesn’t know, but her alcohol-addled mind wants to remember that day in the kitchen, so she turns back and stumbles across the dance floor. She’s seeing double, but that doesn’t stop her from pushing through the crowds and finding her. Dina’s cringing at the song choice and has stepped away from the dance floor- very out of character, Ellie’s drunk brain notes-. She’s pawned JJ off to Tommy, who’s letting the little boy sleep against his shoulder. Ellie thinks that it should be her that is cradling the boy, but then again, she lost all right to that long ago. Dina sees her approach and takes a sip from a nearby bottle, bracing. Ellie approaches her, words slurring over each other. Upon closer inspection, Dina is almost as wasted as Ellie, and, against all better judgement, the two latch on to each other and lurch across the dance floor in a crippled imitation of a dance.

Somehow, they end up in a bed. Through the haze of inebriation, their bodies twist together, rough and feral. No words pass between them. In the morning, Ellie wakes, naked and cold and alone, save for a note that reads, _“We need to talk. -D”._

* * *

They meet at the gates of Jackson at noon. Ellie signed out two horses, and carries her rifle, just in case. When Dina arrives, they saddle up and ride out, ignoring the questioning looks of the gate guards. At this point, the mire of gossip surrounding them is so thick that a foray into the woods is nothing more than another log on the fire. They ride through the forest on a trail known only to them, and emerge from the woods at a grassy plain, atop which sits the ghost of a house. A lone clicker croaks in the distance.

They tie the horses to one of the rails of the porch. Ellie opens the door and Dina walks inside. Their footsteps echo in the empty rooms.

Wind whistles through a smashed-out window and tosses a curl of dark hair over Dina’s forehead. Ellie almost reaches out to brush it away, but remembers her place. Her place, which is currently seated across the dining room table from her former lover whom she left for a quest of petty revenge. They sit in silence for a while before Ellie makes a sarcastic comment on the sheep, which have gone wild and grown fuzzier than ever in their absence. A smile plays at the corner of Dina’s mouth. Conversation flows easier after that. When the evening paints the horizon the colors of sunset, Ellie reaches across the table, and Dina takes Ellie’s scarred hand in her own. When Ellie lightly squeezes her fingers, Dina squeezes back. It’s a start at least, and it’s more than either of them could have hoped for.

**Part 3- Peace**

Years pass. Seasons change. JJ learns his alphabet. Ellie paints and relearns her guitar. The family moves back to the farm, and this time, nobody runs away. Ellie and JJ race around and yell at the sheep- Joel the ram is a pain in the ass (if he were a donkey, Ellie would make puns), but they love him all the same. Dina watches them from the porch swing- installed courtesy of a recently reconciled Tommy and Maria- and fiddles with the strange engraved ring that Ellie had given her in lieu of a wedding band. She loves it more than if it were shiny and golden. Ellie still wears the bracelet that she had given to her all those years ago. Dina likes to think that the bracelet kept her safe through her quest. Maybe it did. Who knows?

Sometimes Ellie gets the flashes- Joel, beaten with that golf club, Jesse, shot through the eye, Riley, with a searing red bite mark on her palm. Sometimes she wanders the house alone at night, sometimes her wife or son will walk the grounds with her. Sometimes, she’ll climb up to the roof of the farmhouse and stare at the stars, wondering what it’s like up there. Sometimes she rolls over, tucks that stray strand of hair that can never quite be contained behind Dina’s ear and remembers that everything is alright. The flashes lessen as the years roll by.

For his fifteenth birthday, Ellie and Dina take JJ to the dinosaur museum that Ellie and Joel visited so long ago. To her chagrin, her son doesn’t share her love of dinosaurs and outer space, but they do find him some electronics to fiddle with and some books on (non-dinosaur) animals. Ellie nicks a space helmet from one of the stands, and when Dina laughs at her choice of head wear, Ellie flips her the bird. It’s a good day, one of many.

Ellie sits on the rail of the farmhouse porch, guitar in hand. She’s spent countless hours learning this song from barely-functioning CD’s. It’s a reflection, she thinks, on the years spent in needless pain and suffering, when all she ever wanted was right here. But perhaps her experience made her stronger and more appreciative of what she had than ever before. Maybe, on some cosmic scale, her whole struggle made sense. She hopes so. She truly does.

_I walk, through the valley, of the shadow of death….._

Somewhere, far away, a Wolf and a Scar sit on a beach facing the same sunset. And under that sunset, there was peace.


End file.
